A Dream of Peace - Daenerys I
Daenerys Targaryen swallowed hard as the door closed behind her with a distinctive but quiet clatter. She was dressed in free-flowing and beautiful silks, things that she'd only ever dreamed of having before this, whilst remaining remarkably chaste.
Unfortunately for her, she hadn't really understood why she was here in the first place - her Almyran was spotty at best, and the servants spoke far too fast for her to properly understand.
But… As she glanced around the room, seeing the brightly coloured marble walls that melded perfectly with the sizable lavender bed, she could only guess why she was here. The ideas that rose to her mind for possibilities were multiple, and each of them were rather undesirable, if she had to be honest.
Dany bit her lip nervously as she stepped a bit further into the room, allowing her a greater view of the room itself. The complete silence apart from her own breathing and the ambience of the palace she could hear from the windows in the far right of the room, were slowly becoming more and more unsettling.
Her curious but wary gaze eventually settled on the desk to the left, and perhaps more importantly, on the massive map of what seemed to be the world that seemed to dominate most of the wall.
With a brief internal debate later, the purple-eyed girl walked towards the desk, her sandals making a distinct noise in the empty soundscape that almost made her flinch instinctively. It didn't stop her however, and she was now able to take a closer look.
It seemed to be a map of Essos and Westeros, and an incredibly expensive one to her inexperienced eyes. There were countless small, detailed illustrations that must have taken days to complete, for important places such as King's Landing, Garreg Mach Monastery, Casterly Rock, Riverrun, Braavos, Vaes Dothrak, and other big cities.
Dany couldn't help but feel oddly attached to the fact that whoever had made this map had even bothered to draw the borders of the three nations in Westeros, and put an illustration of each's banner somewhere nearby the region itself, usually in the seas near it.
The Alliance of Winter, Rivers and Mountains was characterised in dark blue, and had the banner of a white falcon, a grey direwolf and a silver leaping trout all racing on a sea of light blue, probably trying to present a well-hardened alliance of the northernmost kingdoms of Westeros… Even if it seemed odd to her that the Iron Isles were now coloured in blue too.
Weren't they independent…? Did that mean that one of them had made the effort to conquer them?
If Viserys was telling the truth, however, they were schemers and liars all, so perhaps being conquerors wasn't so far off.
Putting the thought out of her mind for now, her curiosity was drawn to the Golden Kingdoms, somewhat ironically, coloured in royal red. The banner itself was an orange lion standing in a field of differently coloured flowers, with grapes, an apple tree and a tall tower in the distance behind it. For some reason, she got the impression that the lion was standing on one flower in particular, the golden rose, but that was probably just her imagination.
The most fertile and prosperous of the nations in Westeros, if any of her 'lessons' were accurate but… She had a feeling that it couldn't be all sunshine and rainbows within them.
If she had learned anything in her life, it was that nothing and no-one ever presented their true face at first glance.
Dany steeled herself as she found herself looking finally at the nation of Westeros that she knew the most on… But also the one that she found herself feeling oddly neutral about. She had never seen the sights that Viserys had told her of, nor met the people that Viserys described originated from there.
But ultimately… It was her home and she still desperately wanted to go back to it, even if it felt absolutely impossible right now. The lands of her family, but also known as the Iron Empire of Flame.
But ever since their loss in the Rebellion, they were now the Usurper's, and the map itself was even coloured in their likeness - a bright yellow, that she couldn't help but find would've been a nice colour anywhere else.
The banner that used to be a red dragon on a black background, if the illustrations that Ser Willem had shown them were correct, was now a black stag with a crown on its horns, with an orange sun beaming overhead on a golden background.
She couldn't stop herself from frowning at the map, as her gaze landed on the one element that seemed to make sure this power balance between the three didn't tip one way or another: the Church of Seiros, or more particularly, Garreg Mach Monastery, which was coloured in white.
The banner it sported was a slumbering white dragon with three banners, two on opposing sides to a bigger one in the center, that carried a familiar red leaf.
It only ruled around the area of the Gods Eye, a lake in the middle of Westeros, a positively miniscule amount of territory compared to the rest, but… Underestimating the power of the Church was what allowed her father to lose, and made her and her brother go on the run as they had.
The sound of fingers snapping and the tip-tap of feet on the marbled floor brought her out of her reverie, when she saw a rather tall, dark-haired woman dressed in unremarkable robes of silk and tied together with a red string around her waist. Her brown eyes sang of impatience, as she crossed her arms. "Are you done daydreaming yet, saghira?"
"Er, yes?" Daenerys answered, feeling a flush rise to her cheeks as the broken words tumbled from her lips.
"Tsk." The older woman tutted, before shaking her head. "Will have to work on that later. For now, come with me."
For a moment, Dany just stood there, blinking rapidly but then she saw the slight furrowing of the woman's brow, and felt her legs move automatically.
Pushing past a single purple curtain, Dany found herself looking at a large bronze bath filled close to the brink with lightly steaming soapy water. Dozens of various bottles of what she could only assume were soaps or perfumes were quietly hidden in the back.
A rather large bamboo divider standing to the right of a table where a mirror contained within silver stood almost proudly. Dany glanced at it out of the corner of her eye, wincing slightly at how unkempt her hair looked - flying on a wyvern might be quick, but it certainly didn't seem to do much for keeping oneself pristine.
"I will leave you to it. But you only have fifteen minutes." The older woman said curtly. "Then I will come and figure out what to do with those, admittedly, beautiful locks of yours, saghira."
"Thank you." Daenerys said quietly, chewing her lip slightly. "Er… What is your name?"
"Mine? Farah." Farah replied, seemingly caught somewhat off-guard. "But you are wasting time talking to me, saghira - get on with the bath."
She opened her mouth to ask another question, when Farah turned on her heel and immediately exited the room without missing a single beat.
"...Right." Dany couldn't help but mutter, chewing her lip in muted frustration. She was a princess of House Targaryen, yet here she was, being talked down to like…
The young woman sighed, feeling her anger fade away as she was suddenly just overcome with a strange exhaustion. Could she really call herself that anymore when she'd been so ignobly sold by Viserys to fund an expedition to the site of a cursed, doomed empire?
He was almost certainly dead and she was a prisoner in a gilded cage… None of those sounded to her like the royalty of anything.
She tentatively stuck a toe into the hot bath, and shivered instinctively as the warmth crept her body as she stepped further and lowered herself into the bath, allowing herself to finally lie down, facing the doorway.
The hot water felt absolutely marvellous, relaxing her surprisingly tired muscles and soothing her skin. Dany let out a small sigh of relief, allowing herself to be lost in the sensation of finally being in a sense, at peace.
For the fifteen minutes of quiet she'd been allowed, where there was no sound but her own breathing and the ambience of the palace, Daenerys Targaryen allowed herself to briefly forget. She allowed herself to briefly become Dany, the fourteen year old girl, rather than the princess of a lost empire or… She elected to not think about it.
It was oddly blissful - for just a moment, it had all faded away.
The sound of the curtain being pulled back pulled her from the moment, and she opened her eyes to see that Farah was not alone. The brusque servant had her head bowed, holding a few cloths, whilst behind her, around four or so other servants, including a single man, were holding scissors, bottles of oil and perfume, or other such items.
However, more importantly than that, one woman stood in front of them all. Wearing a beautiful blue dress of cotton and silk, with a white falcon weaved into the fabric across her chest, it was blatant that she was of a far higher stature around here then anyone else, along with the jewellery that she wore. Notably, a silver tiara with an emerald embedded in its centre that the woman wore proudly on her silver-tipped blonde hair and a diamond encrusted gold necklace, the diamond shaped like a crescent moon.
Her blue eyes surveyed her for a brief moment, more particularly Dany's eyes, face and hair as far as she could figure out, before she nodded and for the first time in a month, she finally heard the language of her homeland. "I think for once ever since he got that damnable letter, Amir might have the right of it."
"My lady…?" Daenerys tentatively raised her voice, also speaking in the Common Tongue, before almost immediately allowing herself to quiet down at Farah's glare.
"This is her formal royal highness, Al-Sheikha Alys Arryn, saghira." Farah interrupted in Almyran, taking furtive glances at Alys as she said so. "And she hadn't finished speaking."
"No, no, it is quite alright, Farah." The proud woman said, a wrinkled finger lightly tapping the water as she switched back to their mutual tongue. "Quite hot… Do you find it particularly hot, scalding or neither?"
Dany hesitated for a brief moment, but a slight but intense jerk of Farah's knee made her speak. "Neither, your highness. It feels just right."
Alys Arryn hummed thoughtfully, as she dried her wet finger on her dress. "And what do you know about me, then, little drake?"
"You're the sister of that trait-'' Dany almost instantly responded, only to shut her mouth in horror. Why had she said that?!
"Just continue, little drake." Alys interrupted, her lips gaining a slightly bemused upturn. "I'm not about to bite."
"The sister of Jon Arryn, the Lord of the Eyrie and current Archon of the Alliance. You ran off with er… Al-Sheik…" Dany couldn't help but notice Farah's urgent knee jerking. How did she know…? "Al-Malik Darius, and were crossed off the line of succession."
"That's pretty accurate." Alys commented idly, as she began to absentmindedly lean back on a chair close to the wall. "For all that your brother was clearly carrying his resentment, he taught you well, did he not?"
"He tried his hardest with what we had." Daenerys said cautiously.
"Shame that even he fell to his base urges for money at the end of the day." Alys said, suddenly looking at her straight in the eye.
A surge of anger shot through her as she opened her mouth to retort. "It wasn't-"
Dany realised her error then, as the blue-eyed woman smirked slightly, leaning forward to look at her more closely. "Curious. For the amount of money that he got from you…"
The older woman reached into a small pocket on her hip, and pulled out a small bit of paper. "A couple thousand golden crescents or the equivalent in Volantis. Enough perhaps for a naïve bid for Valyria to obtain the dragons that had secured Westeros for Empress Visenya, or to Asshai where that all began…"
"What am I even here for?" Daenerys demanded, sitting up as high as she could in the bath without compromising her modesty just to glare at this aggravating old woman. "What did you buy me for?"
Infuriatingly, Alys Arryn's smirk didn't lessen - it merely changed into a somewhat coy smile. "Would you believe that my son, Al-Malik Amir, bought you and subsequently freed you all to his whims? He thought that you were too pretty and young to become the sex slave of a disgusting slaver from Yunkai or what have you, and he wanted to save you from that life if he could. That's the entire reason that you were bought."
Dany swallowed at that, feeling distinctly hollow. It was just on a whim? There wasn't any grandiose plan involving her or Viserys… It was just because of luck that he was there that day. "Is that why I get called…"
"Yes, saghira." Alys replied surprisingly sympathetically, her voice gaining an oddly harsh and authoritative bent as she finally spoke in Almyran for the first time in their entire conversation. "It's affectionate, but ultimately, yes that's why. Amir coined it himself when he was explaining to us, his family, why he had bought you."
"...Then why am I here?" Dany finally asked. "You didn't answer that."
"Hm?" Alys raised an eyebrow as she leaned back into her chair.
"I saw what you did to the others you bought. You sent them to that training centre so that they could begin working to obtain their true freedom, but I got brought here." Dany continued, feeling somehow more invigorated as she began to lay it all out. "You have more things planned for me."
"Have you thought about it merely being for decency's sake?" Alys pointed out, sighing almost sadly. "You were bought by Amir, and he is a kind soul for all of his bluster. He doesn't want you to have to work off any debt unlike those other former slaves - he isn't about to save you from one sort of exploitation to put you into another one."
"Perhaps that's why originally, and I must thank him for it when I see him again." Dany replied, not letting up in the slightest. "But I think you hijacked whatever he had planned for me, for some reason… Or you wouldn't have come to check in on me."
They stared at each other for a long moment, Dany with intent, Alys with bemusement… Only for a small, genuine grin to rise up on the older woman's face. "Clever girl… Farah, what do you make of it?"
"There was a lot of guesswork but she arrived at the right conclusion, Al-Sheikha." Farah said, her head still bowed.
"Now, now, don't be too mean." Alys shushed, standing up without much fanfare. "Well I've dallied here too long. Be sure to make her as beautiful as you possibly can, and bring her to the gardens after you're done."
The servant nodded once, bowing deeply as the woman turned on her heel to leave. "Yes, Al-Sheikha."
Dany watched all of this curiously, feeling a question rise up to the forefront of her mind. But not before… "Thank you, Farah."
"For what, saghira?" The dusk-haired woman asked simply, but more… kindly then last time.
"For helping me." She said quietly, turning around in the bath and putting her back to the door to allow them access to her hair. She couldn't help but feel slightly, but childishly, afraid of turning her back like this… She was a Targaryen, those who had ruled Westeros for nigh on a hundred fifty years. She was stronger than this.
"My duty, nothing more." Farah said, sliding her fingers through her hair gently. "I sense that you have a question to ask however, saghira."
"Al-Sheikha mentioned a letter. What was it about?" Dany inquired, shuddering involuntarily as she felt her dirty hair get slowly but surely massaged.
"Ah, that? I'm pretty sure it'll come up when you talk to Al-Sheikha Alys in the gardens." The older woman replied, clicking her fingers behind Dany and gesturing. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a small bucket of soapy water being passed behind her, and then the scrapping of a small… table if she had to guess, against the flooring.
Frowning somewhat, Dany chewed her lip slightly at the lack of a forthcoming answer… And guessed that any further question wasn't about to be answered either, so she decided to keep quiet. For now, anyway.
Feeling a pair of fingers push slightly on her forehead, she tipped her head back and couldn't help but shut her eyes reflexively.
For what felt like a countless amount of time later, as she felt them thread her hair into a circular braid, before they threaded it past her ear. She then saw them thread into her newfound bangs, two incredibly small diamonds, rubies and finally black opals from top to bottom.
"Is this sufficient?" The man asked Farah, his voice sounding somewhat impatient.
"Yes, Darius. You may attend to the demands of…" Farah retorted, only for her voice to soften slightly. "Ah. Shalid."
"Which one is Shalid?" Dany couldn't help but ask, her curiosity flaring up as she turned around slightly to see them out of the corner of her eye.
Darius looked at her for a moment, his rather brilliant moustache that slightly twirled upwards almost flaring with his nostrils. "One of Al-Malik Amir's spawns. Older by merely months to his siblings, yet acts like he is guaranteed to be heir."
"Thank the Skymother that Khalid keeps him from truly uplifting to the heavens with that big head of his." Farah added somewhat languidly. "But enough gossiping, Darius. The walls have ears, you know that as well as I do."
Darius flicked his fingers dismissively, even as he turned on his heel to leave. "An overused saying and one poorly suited for myself anyhow."
The curtains fluttered dramatically upon his exit, and Dany couldn't help but blink quietly at… whatever that was. She was missing far too many pieces to even puzzle together what that meant.
"I will tell you in a moment, saghira." Farah said quickly, catching her confusion. "But for now, get dressed and then it's onwards to the gardens."
It took barely a few minutes for Daenerys to put on the lavender dress that opened up at her shoulder blades. It made her feel somewhat… pretty, for lack of a better word.
As they stepped out of the bathroom, Dany found herself closely being guided by Farah, allowing her eyes to wander somewhat. It still amazed her how much of the palace was built out of marble - something that was rare to find even in Braavos, yet was clearly more than plentiful here.
"Do you still wish to know why Darius is so unconcerned?" Farah asked quietly, not even looking to the side at her.
"He knows or is related to someone important, I would guess." She murmured back, briefly wondering why they were talking so hushedly… When she briefly glanced at a curtain into what seemed to be another bedroom, to see that idle conversation always seemed to stop as they went by.
"Hit the wyvern in the eye on that one." The maid answered easily. "He's the one who cuts the hair of the royal family, who was hired by Al-Malik Amir himself. He is nigh untouchable for that reason alone, especially as Amir is… not one to take offence at much."
Dany didn't offer much more than a dignified nod in reply, her mind briefly lost in thought. She remembered the man at the auction - the man who seemed to not belong in that house of slavers and killers.
Even as she later came to know that he was at the head of the most powerful empire in the known world - one that stretched from the Golden Fields of Mother Rhoyne to the edges of the Red Wastes. Someone that powerful couldn't possibly have risen to the top without bodies underneath his boot, she reflected.
Maybe that was why Viserys sold her… He thought that the only way to get their home back was to push onwards no matter what.
Daenerys pushed the thought out of her mind as she suddenly saw… Verdant greenery. Up ahead of her, she saw a brilliant garden of palm trees, orange trees, with a veritable microcosm of a thousand flowers that she couldn't quite figure out the names of, all of a different size, colour and shape. In the centre, however, lay a brilliant marble statue of a woman, dressed in a leather hauberk aiming her now at the sky, surrounded by a fountain where she stood on two dais where the water passed through.
…Was that the Skymother the Almyrans had been mentioning this whole time? She couldn't help but wonder.
Overlooking the garden were the imperial apartments and court, a massive building decorated with a brilliant gold façade that seemed to detail the accomplishments of the Skymother and the pantheon over which she ruled.
Beneath the statue, Alys Arryn saw on a bench of oak, whilst a young man dressed in a royal purple toga of his own, languidly lay down on the ground, absentmindedly twirling a solitary braid of his dark brown hair that tumbled down his handsome face.
"I see that you have finally arrived, little drake." Alys said elegantly, speaking the Common Tongue once again, as she stood up to briefly smell a rose. "You may sit wherever you like, by the way. Nobody is going to judge you for enjoying these gardens."
"They're wonderful, my lady." Daenerys offered, looking around briefly for somewhere nice to sit, noticing a small but nicely made pine chair with a red cushion on it that seemed to be somewhat out of the way. She pulled it opposite the boy, who seemed to be looking at her with curiosity in his pretty, light green eyes.
"Isn't someone going to introduce me?" He asked with only the slightest tinge of an Almyran accent, glancing between Dany and Alys idly.
Alys looked at him for a brief moment, before shaking her head. "Seven save me. This is Daenerys Targaryen, boy."
His eyes widened minutely at the name, as he suddenly sat up a bit straighter to look at her more directly. "Oh…"
"Oh, indeed." The older Arryn woman repeated somewhat sarcastically. "Well, aren't you going to introduce yourself?"
"I was getting to it, sheesh." The dark-haired boy retorted, a slight grin rising to his face, before it faded to a more… serious expression as his gaze landed on her. "The name's Khalid… Or Claude in the Common Tongue. I'm one of the many crown princes around here, but don't worry too much about that."
Dany tentatively offered her knuckles, which he quickly tapped with his lips politely. "It's a pleasure to meet you… Er, Khalid."
She almost glanced around for Farah, to get some idea if she was making a false step… Only to find that the woman had disappeared. In fact, everyone besides the two royals in front of her had disappeared, outside of a few guards just out of earshot.
"Same here, your grace." Khalid replied with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.
"Now that all of those formalities are out of the way," Alys said, her voice breaking apart the slight staring contest between them. "I think I need to tell you what all of this… kerfuffle is all about."
"Mind if I tell her, aodo? It is me that's supposed to be taking charge." Khalid interrupted, as he finally stood up, leaning idly against the statue.
Alys said nothing, merely letting the slightest crack of a smile rise to her face.
"What is going on here…? Why am I even here?" Daenerys asked with a deep frown, not particularly liking the feeling that she was being left in the dark.
"Well you're here because my dad is a softie, and what's going on is… Well, this." Khalid replied easily. He reached down into a small pouch on his side, and pulled out a letter with… the seal of House Arryn and the Alliance.
For a brief moment, Daenerys was left puzzled at what that meant… Only for her eyes to widen as she connected the dots in her mind. "You're Jon Arryn's heir, aren't you?"
Khalid grinned at that, his eyes brightening somewhat. "Got it in one. The old man's heirs have all been dying for one reason or another, and he's facing pressure to declare an heir. Now, he doesn't really want to give up power to another House, because…"
"Because it would be terrible for the prestige of the Alliance, victors of the Failed Conquest, to have their leader be replaced by someone who isn't a Great House." Alys intervened somewhat harshly, softening as she spoke more personally. "And I don't think my brother wants our house to die out with a whimper, either. He always took pride in being an Arryn, gods bless him."
"But why, you, in particular?" Dany couldn't help but ask. "Aren't you pretty far down the line of succession?"
"Yes, I am normally." Khalid admitted, seemingly not particularly bothered by that. "Except well… I got a little something."
Dany raised an elegant eyebrow, as she watched him idly pick up a peach from the floor, before he tossed it into the air. Pulling a knife faster than she could see, and moving almost as quickly, he threw it into the air, cutting the peach in half and catching all three items in quick succession.
All the while, his eyes were glowing with the slightest hint of a symbol within them - a small leaf.
"That's a…" She said, still somewhat shocked by the display. "You have a crest?"
"I do. And that's why I'm the one getting the job over all of my brothers." Khalid replied, as he offered one half of the peach to her. "Nobody is really going to believe that I'm an Arryn on-sight, for rather obvious reasons, but having the Crest of Seiros? Handed to Artys Arryn a thousand years ago by Saint Seiros herself? It's undeniable proof that I am who I say I am."
Dany tenderly accepted the peach, almost tempted to chew into it nervously… But she bit her lip, steeling herself. "And where do I enter this picture?"
The handsome prince in front of her looked at her with a small grin, stepping slightly towards her. "Well… I need you because I have a plan, Daenerys. But do you wanna hear it?"
Dany nodded, unsure of whether or not to trust her voice.
"Well, I need you to… help me conquer Westeros." Khalid declared intently, his gaze boring into her own. "I'll be taking the reins of the Alliance, and then I'll help you take back the Empire. A quid pro quo, if you want."
Dany stared at the offered hand, and then at the eyes of the boy… No, the man who offered it. He was giving her the opportunity of her dreams, yet… She couldn't help but hesitate.
"So, what do you say?" He offered, his hand still outstretched.
The chance to live comfortably, without fear… Or risk it all for a dream…?
A dream of reclaiming her birthright… Of toppling the stag that sat upon her family's throne in her family's capital. She was a Targaryen, her brother had always reminded her of it and it seemed that it was up to her to restore their name.
"You have a deal, Khalid." Daenerys Targaryen said, shaking his hand with confidence.